Monday, 6 February 2012

Shovelling Snow

That's what we did yesterday - shovel snow. Quite a novelty for someone who grew up in the Australian bush, but we received about 10cm of snow on Saturday night and removing snow from the road front of their house is what good members of the community do.

The snow made the whole of town look beautiful (I assume - it certainly evened out the bumps in this part of town) but as our house is right on the street it's a good idea to shift the snow before it freezes and people start sliding into our walls. The snow was light and powdery, but the council did run a tractor down the street which compressed much of the snow into ice, requiring chipping away with a shovel as well as sweeping.

As you can see, Susan's new boots got their first serious outing as well.

When we arrived home on Saturday the house was an icy cold 11°C. Steady application of heat had raised that to 17-18°C by yesterday evening, which means we are almost 30° warmer than outside. I am pleased with that as we are not using electricity or oil to heat the house, just the wood burning stove in the salon.

When I mentioned our water supply freezing yesterday I forgot to mention that the downstairs toilet is still not filling up. The water supply for that has a numer of stopcocks on it, one being for the outside tap. We assume this has frozen up, but it's difficult to get heat to it. What we really need is a hair dryer, (or a heat gun) something neither Susan or I own. Maybe when we go to the supermarket today we will look at cheap hairdryers.

9 comments:

Hair dryer... NOT electric paint stripper! Hair dryer is gentle, if more time consuming, but can be strapped in place and left. Heat guns are far too fierce and can lead to damage... been there, cleaned up the mess afterwards!![A fan heater also helps... when we had no water here a few years back in the longere, I used a fan heater next to the taps, etc. by the tank in the grenier. One and a half hours later we were fluid again. Sun's out here and the birds are feeding fast... filled the feeders last thing on Saturday... will be doing it again in about an hour at present rate of consumption.Keep safe, keep warm and go to the village shop

I've just come over here to the longere and am about to bail out the toilet... the outflow is frozen... but I will bail and throw... and then try a bucket of hot water to replace the bailings... probably won't work [but I'll be bailing warm water the second time round!]Oh, the joys of winter.... beware yellow snow!!

When Do You Eat Cheese in France?
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In the Loire Valley most people eat some cheese every day. All the local
cheeses are made from goats milk and that's what people will mostly eat,
but they ...

About Us

Susan was born in Victoria, but moved to Queensland when she was 11. Simon was born in London, but moved to Canberra when he was 7, and to Queensland when he was 28. In 1997 they moved to London. Susan worked for a large heritage and nature conservation trust and Simon taught music technology at tertiary level.

Now we live in Preuilly-sur-Claise, a small town with a population of less than 1000 people in the south of the Loire Valley. We write about the restoration of our house, the history of our local area, nature, cooking and anything else that strikes us as interesting. When we are not blogging we run Loire Valley Time Travel, doing individually tailored tours of the Touraine for anglophone visitors in our classic Citroëns, Célestine and Claudette.

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